Nice thread guys,
about that weapon stats, I would like us to clarify the vocabulary. Actually the "range" term is like a parameter but with the current formula it has not a good and understandable meaning...
I'm really surprised to understand now the formula give a remington the availability to kill someone from very very far. Do we really want to accept that ?
In my opinion, "range" should mean you won't hit someone if his distance to you is greater than that... I may be wrong, but that sounds logical from the word meaning.
Joe Kari wrote:IMO, the formula should meet few things:
- the falloff should be proportional to the weapon base damage
- the damage should never fall to 0, so the falloff shouldn't be linear
This formula seems good to me:
Damage = BaseDamage * WeaponRange / ( Distance + WeaponRange )
BaseDamage: the damage of the weapon at close range (for distance=0)
Distance: the distance between the shooter and the target
WeaponRange: when Distance = WeaponRange, the target take 50% of damage.
Like moRtem, I would prefer simpler formula. And here is what I propose with the idea to clarify the "range" parameter:
1. First current weapon ranges should be multiplied by 3 or 4, maybe more, and tuned
2. We should continue to apply a cut-off test and apply full damage if target is in 2/3 to 3/4 of the weapon range, what I mean the cut-off range.
3. We should decrease with a simple linear formula from full damage to 0 damage between the cut-off and the weapon range.
If we consider the cut-off at 2/3, the formula could be the following after the cut-off:
Damage = 3 * BaseDamage * ( 1 - Distance / WeaponRange )Remark: Number 3 here is in fact WeaponRange/(WeaponRange-CutOffRange)
Remark2: I'm not sure Cut-off word is the good oneThis may gives a minor optimization for the engine as we won't try to trace after the weapon range.
This may also involve tactical change. You'll need to move near from your target is you are too far...
And finally we may think we will need to change the weapon range in big maps with too few players. Or can we think to compute weapon range relatively to players count ?
Of course, that's just my ideas.